Vanity plates, Emirates style

In the Emirates you can pay extra for a lower numbered license plate.  I've heard the two digit ones cost thousands of dollars... which is probably found in the seat cushions of a Lexus SUV.  


Update:  Check comments for a correction of this post...

Harkin flexes his muscles

My fellow political geeks will appreciate this story.  I'm not a huge Harkin fan, but my party (and state) could do worse in who is leading the fight on healthcare.  

Dealing with Du - a customer service saga

I know, many of you thought my printing my Du problems on a large piece of paper seemed lame... and it was. The problem is that customers have no power here. I can't force Du to take my phone back. Short of stomping my feet and turning my face red there's really nothing I can do to Du.

But the paper did cause some action. I spent over an hour on the phone yesterday with them and was told again and again that they were working on my problem and it would be fixed very soon.

Today is the 21st day since I bought the phone and I went back to the store.

The store employs customer service reps and I've come to know them all. I'm pretty sure they wish they had never met me.

CSR: I see the problem has escalated to the right technical team. It should be fixed within a day or two.

Me: Do you have any idea how many times I've heard that in the past 21 days?

CSR: At least ten times.

Me: Ten times here and as many times on phone assistance.

CSR: There's nothing more I can do.

Me: Yes, there is. You can give me a data card. Give me 200 MB of data to tide me over until you fix this.

He spoke with a colleague for a few minutes. I remained standing at the counter. He then started helping other customers. I decided to remain standing there. After ten minutes of him avoiding eye contact he reached in the drawer and gave me a data card.

What's so odd is that this was the easy solution three weeks ago!

******

Favorite moment of the ordeal so far: While speaking with a CSR on the phone I asked to speak to a manager. She put me on hold and came back to say that all the managers were in a meeting. I said, "Really? Not a single manager available? OK, I'll wait. I have nothing to do for several hours so you can put me on hold and I'll wait for a manager."

"One minute, sir..."

Two minutes later a "manager" came on the phone... who was also no help...

It takes living in this country to appreciate customer service in the US.

Could you use this toilet?

This is one I had to check on Snopes and it's real. Imagine entering a mirrored cubicle like this...

... and it's a bathroom.
You can see everyone passing by you but they can't see you. Could you use this toilet? My first reaction was, "That would be great!" Then I had to admit I'd get stage fright.

In the old Kinnick stadium the bathrooms had long tub urinals. At halftime hundreds of guys would be lined up. No matter how bad I had to go by the time I'd get to the front it just wouldn't happen. I'd close my eyes and picture anything to get the flow going. More than once I had to walk away choking back tears because I, umm, couldn't perform.

There are few worse feelings of failure than an inability to perform one of life's most basic functions.

Failed science projects

Andrew Sullivan brought my attention to these 35 Amazing Science Projects.

I'm not sure which one is more warped... I'd have to say the lower one wins if you get try to read the "Types of sex."

Clash of the Titans

&

VS.

Rupert Murdoch has built an incredible media empire that includes Fox, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and several tabloids. He recently decided that the majority of the content from his news sites should go behind a pay wall. Unless you're a paid subscriber you won't get it.

Hmm. Many years ago I read the New York Times columnists every day. I even had my political economy class read one conservative and one liberal columnist. To try to raise money, the Times put them behind a pay wall. I stopped reading. A year later they realized it was a failure and stopped it. I haven't gone back to regular reading.

The article explains what Murdoch is doing, but what is most interesting is the comments. Every single comment thinks it's a bad idea.

Dealing with Du

I purchased an IPhone on October 27th. I haven't written much about it on the blog because the phone hasn't worked. The problem is not the phone, it's the phone company, Du. I keep going to the office and calling their help number and I'm told time again that a technician would be in touch within 48 hours.

Tonight I tried a slightly different approach: I summarized my story in very bold print and took it to the office. I handed a copy to each of the five employees plus an extra one for the manager, who was not present.

I was promised I would get a call in the morning.

I have to admit I was tempted to cough and sneeze on each piece of paper, but alas, I can't be that mean.

NYU Prof says "Going Muslim" should replace "Going Postal"

A right-wing Professor at NYU is doing wonders for US - Middle East relations.

And we don't want to be like you, either!

I'm pretty sure most Californians appreciate not being like Iowans. I know I'm happy that we're not like California when it comes to the state budget. California's budget deficit is 49% of the total budget. Meaning, they are spending almost twice what they are taking in. Iowa's shortfall of 13% looks pretty good by comparison. In fact, if you read through this report from Pew you'll see that Iowa fairs pretty well on a number of fronts.

In the past Iowa often suffered more than other states in a recession, primarily because of our dependence on one industry: Agriculture. The early 1980's was a double whammy as ag and our manufacturing jobs were both devastated. This time Iowa is fairing better because our state's economy has diversified and Iowa didn't have the housing bubble other states had.

Your internal organs as you've never seen them before

Nothin' disturbing about that.

Wishing Levi would bare his soul

It's a big week for those of us who love all things Palin: Levi just completed his photo shoot for Playgirl and Sarah's book is unveiled on Monday... complete with a full hour of Oprah. After taking swipes at Levi for most of 2009, Palin plays nice in her book and the Oprah show.

Why? Levi's been saying for weeks that he's got dirt on Palin so bad it would crush her. When told she was nice in the Oprah interview Levi said,

"She's being smart. She knows what I got on her. It's a smart move on her part."

Before I started writing this post I made some popcorn. I'm certainly going to need more popcorn from home before this story is over.

Massaman curry

The Thai restaurant was great. I'm not a huge fan of Thai iced tea (it tastes like tea + milk), but I loved trying Massaman curry. I'd never had it before it had a strong peanut taste.

I also had some very spicy soup. I thought it caused a sore throat. In reality the sore throat was coming either way and the spicy soup just sped it up.

In search of the truth - A Cedar Rapidian's Odyssey

This story has it all:

• Sex voyeurism
• A dinosaur-like creature in Africa
• $40,000 spent to travel the world in search of the truth
• Cover-ups and conspiracies
• Forged documents
• and a comment about Starbucks that caused a united team to break up

And from the first paragraph of the deposition:

"My name is Lucas Daniel Smith. I am 29 years old (DOB 01.04.1980). I was born in the state of Iowa. My hometown is Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

What???

In turns out that the intellectual arm of the birthers (those who believe Obama was born in Africa) was born in CR. Wow. If you have time I urge you to read the deposition. It's... umm. Well, it's something.

Not so lucky

I hoped my sore throat yesterday was the result of spicy food. It wasn't. I apparently had a sore throat coming and the spicy food helped bring it along.

Today I'm pretty miserable. Sore throats are my Achilles heal. I become a large crying baby when I have a bad sore throat. I'd rather have two weeks of diarrhea than a day with a bad sore throat. And given the past two months, I can make that comparison accurately.

So I stocked up on vitamin C, zinc, and Tylenol. I'm going to do my best to sleep the next two days away and drink a lot of water. I've had some really sick students lately so I hope if I'm good during the early stages of this cold/flu I can keep it from becoming too bad.

Or maybe a little lucky

At this moment there was supposed to be over 20 people at my apartment celebrating Thanksgiving. We moved it back to November 20th.* The way I feel right now I am very happy I don't have to fake feeling well and risk getting others sick.

* Why not celebrate Thanksgiving, you know, ON Thanksgiving? We have a 10 day vacation during that time and a lot of people are leaving the country.

The dangers of Thai food

I went to Dubai for the day and had Thai for dinner because there aren't many options where I live. The food was good but somehow a hot pepper scraped the back of my throat. It created an instant nasty sore throat. I've never had anything like that happen before.

I got home a little after 11 tonight and unbelievably can't find any Tylenol or aspirin in the place. I know I've bought some. I know it should be somewhere but after looking for over an hour I've given up. It's left me in a cranky, whiny mood.

Earlier today (now yesterday since it's 1AM here) I heard an interesting story of branding camels. The story will have to wait. I hope I wake up and the pain is gone.

Iowa’s next senator?

I’m a Democrat and a realist. The odds of any Democrat beating Chuck Grassley are 10:1 at best.

I have a special affinity for Roxanne Conlin – one of the nation’s first US attorneys and the first woman to be nominated to run for governor of Iowa in 1982. She lost, largely due to a bogus issue… her farming husband lost money and didn’t pay income tax. Never mind that many farmers lost money in 1982 and didn’t pay income tax.

This ad is excellent:

If Chuck had seriously negotiated on healthcare and worked for a compromise I’d have probably supported him in 2010. Instead he got spooked by the tea-baggers at his town hall meetings in August and chose to quit. So I’ll support whichever Don Quixote my party nominates next June.

Who knows? Maybe she’ll knock this Grassley windmill over.

Creepy wedding photos

Karey sent this link to creepy wedding photos. It's a funny website. I was particularly drawn to this photo:

In college Mike a friend rented porn with the title "Flintbones." Frickin' hilarious. To this day I walk along and say, "Bam! Bam! -  Bam! Bam!" and crack up.

Using abortion to kill healthcare reform

I appreciate it when adversaries are blunt. The right has decided to go all-in on the anti-abortion amendment to the healthcare bill:

"The Democrats will never go for it. But above all else, we must remember the strategy must be to kill the bill, not improve it."

Pushing the anti-abortion amendment is to create a "poison pill" - something that would cause enough Democrats to vote against it that the overall bill would die.

In pure politics it's pretty good. Sadly, I think my fellow Democrats will fall into the trap that's been laid for them.

I hate it when I don't understand

A student was wearing this t-shirt today. Any ideas what it means?